Chap­ter 38 marks a piv­otal moment in my jour­ney toward reclaim­ing my strength and sense of self. Dur­ing my third year in Vegas, I felt a resur­gence of some­thing I hadn’t expe­ri­enced in a long time—true strength. It was a sense of pow­er that came from with­in, a recog­ni­tion that I could no longer endure the con­straints of the con­ser­va­tor­ship. For so long, my par­ents had con­vinced me I was the prob­lem, the “crazy” one, and that nar­ra­tive worked in their favor. This con­stant under­min­ing of my sense of self led to a deep emo­tion­al wound, and the frus­tra­tion I felt began to fuel my desire for change. I was tired of being con­trolled and under­val­ued. I had spent too long sup­press­ing my voice, but now, it was time to reclaim it. The anger and help­less­ness I had expe­ri­enced for so many years start­ed to trans­form into deter­mi­na­tion.

As my strength grew, I began to look for exam­ples of women who suc­cess­ful­ly wield­ed pow­er in a pos­i­tive way. Reese With­er­spoon stood out to me as a role mod­el. She had a rep­u­ta­tion for being both kind and strong, and I admired that bal­ance. Watch­ing her con­fi­dent­ly nav­i­gate her career and per­son­al life made me real­ize that I didn’t have to choose between being sweet and being assertive—I could be both. This rev­e­la­tion changed how I saw myself. I wasn’t just here to make oth­ers hap­py, I deserved to express my desires and assert my bound­aries. With this shift in mind­set, I felt a surge of pow­er and con­fi­dence that I hadn’t felt in years. The more I embraced this new­found strength, the more I felt like the per­son I used to be before the con­ser­va­tor­ship took con­trol of my life.

How­ev­er, as I began to assert myself, those around me were tak­en aback. When you’ve been qui­et and com­pli­ant for so long, assert­ing your­self can be seen as a threat, and that’s exact­ly what hap­pened. My team and fam­i­ly seemed to fear the per­son I was becom­ing. I felt like a queen reclaim­ing her throne, and I imag­ined them bow­ing down to me. The more I spoke up, the more my pow­er surged, and I knew that I could no longer be manip­u­lat­ed into silence. But with that new­found strength came a hard truth: I had been forced to live under an incred­i­bly tight and con­trol­ling sched­ule. Vegas had become a grind—performing the same show every week, with no oppor­tu­ni­ty for cre­ativ­i­ty or change. I had been ask­ing for a remix, a new num­ber, any­thing to break the monot­o­ny, but my requests were ignored. It felt like I was los­ing the joy I had once felt for per­form­ing.

Per­form­ing became more of a chore than a pas­sion. I no longer had the pure love for singing that I had in my younger years. The cre­ativ­i­ty that once defined me was being sti­fled, and I was being told what to sing and when, with no room for my input. The lack of auton­o­my over my own per­for­mance was frus­trat­ing, espe­cial­ly when my team was unwill­ing to make changes. I had years of expe­ri­ence and a deep pas­sion for my craft, yet I was being treat­ed like a cog in a machine. The refusal to let me change the show, to add new ele­ments for my fans, made me feel like my artistry was being dis­re­gard­ed. I want­ed to give my fans some­thing fresh and excit­ing, but the response I got was always “no.” The whole sit­u­a­tion felt lazy and dis­heart­en­ing, and I wor­ried about how my fans would per­ceive me. I longed to bring some­thing new to the table, but I was con­stant­ly met with resis­tance.

This ten­sion reached its peak when I real­ized that even the sim­ple act of remix­ing my own songs was being blocked. I would spend hours in stu­dios cre­at­ing new ver­sions, but my team always found a rea­son not to include them. It became clear that they weren’t inter­est­ed in mak­ing the show bet­ter for my fans, they just want­ed to stick to the sta­tus quo. Even when I asked for small changes, like play­ing a new song dur­ing a quick cos­tume change, I was told it wasn’t pos­si­ble. I knew this was a lie, and the more they denied me, the more I felt like my cre­ativ­i­ty and voice were being sti­fled. The lack of flex­i­bil­i­ty in my per­for­mances made me feel old and dis­con­nect­ed from my art. I was a per­former, but I wasn’t allowed to express myself cre­ative­ly any­more, and it was break­ing my spir­it.

The turn­ing point came when I was giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate new mate­r­i­al for the Glo­ry album. The free­dom to per­form new mate­r­i­al brought back a sense of light­ness and cre­ativ­i­ty I hadn’t felt in years. Glo­ry remind­ed me of the excite­ment of mak­ing music that was fresh and authen­tic. How­ev­er, even when I was hon­ored with the Radio Dis­ney Icon Award the fol­low­ing year, the over­whelm­ing feel­ings of being trapped and over­looked resur­faced. As I watched the show and saw a med­ley of my old songs, I couldn’t help but feel the con­trast between the young, cre­ative per­son I had once been and the per­former I had become. Watch­ing Jamie Lynn sur­prise me with a per­for­mance of “Till the World Ends” and hand me the award was an emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence. It remind­ed me of a time when my artistry felt tru­ly cel­e­brat­ed and not just a prod­uct of some­one else’s con­trol.

This reflec­tion on the past made me real­ize how far I had come and how much I had lost. The Glo­ry album had reignit­ed my pas­sion for music, but it was dif­fi­cult to rec­on­cile that with the rigid struc­ture I was still liv­ing under. Despite the exter­nal acco­lades, I couldn’t ignore the deep sense of dis­sat­is­fac­tion I felt with my career and the way it was being man­aged. The con­trast between my inner desire to break free and the con­straints placed upon me was stark. It became clear that I need­ed to take action, to assert con­trol over my own life and career. I had to find a way to reclaim my pow­er and break free from the sys­tem that had kept me in check for so long.